What was the best fighter of WW2? Both in paper and in practicality?

German pilots say the p-51 was a game changer.
Walter Wolfrum, a Luftwaffe ace with 137 victories, remembered of his encounters with American fighters that "the P-47 wasn't so bad because we could out turn and outclimb it, initially. [...] The P-51 was something else. It could do everything we could do and do it much better. First off, it was hard to recognize. Unless you saw it from the side, it looked like a Me 109. This caused us trouble from the outset. We would see them, think they were ours and then the damned things would shoot us full of holes. We didn't like them at all! " .mustang.gaetanmarie.com/articles/germany/germany.htm

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p51 or spitfire, depending on specific variants and what you're considering for strategic practicality along with doctrine. I prefer the p51 for sheer versatility but can respect the spitfire and it should get some extra points for being combat effective far earlier while being such an upgradeable design.

La5

>German fighter pilots literally dominate the most kills list.

Those are exceptions and not the rule.

The quality of the average German pilot only diminished over the course of the war, while Allied pilots improved. Not only were allied pilots rotated out of combat to train the next generation, but the inadequacies of German training were exacerbated by fuel shortages. Even by 1943, German pilots were receiving a little over half the training hours that American and British pilots were.

>p51
jesus how retarded you are
Thats because all top scoring german aces had 2000+ sorties while top scoring allied ace had like 600? Because germans loved their shitty elitism and didn't make their aces teach new reinforcements how to fight that's why these retards lost, by 1943 USSR dominated in skies and no amount of aces would save german air superiority

I dont think it was elitism, they just didn't have enough men to train thoroughly enough to be competent. German pilots like you said never really got a break, the luftwaffe flew them until they died or the war ended, was pretty shitty. So by the end of the war, they were losing more and more experienced pilots, and couldn't replace them with quality pilots in time. Still, their kill counts are pretty damn impressive considering. Also, not every top scoring german ace was on the eastern front. I"m not a wehraboo or anything, im just saying that they should get credit for the sheer amount of planes they shot down. If anything its a testament to the russian/american war machine were they had plenty of plane shot down but always had 10 more waiting to go. Germany never had that luxury.

Lavochkin or yakovlev? Which one of those fighter lines performed better for the soviets?

>>p51
>jesus how retarded you are
Go ahead and post that edited version of Death Traps.

One also needs to take into account the ease and cost of production and support when comparing WWII fighter aircraft.

The Yak.

The answer is the Jug
>most produced american fighter of the war
>actually saw extensive use in BOTH theaters of the war
>most heavily armed fighter in the war
>entered into service early enough to make a significant difference
>pure utilitarian design makes it ugly as fuck and is proud of it

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This; it was the most astounding airframe of the war' 30 variants, IIRC

Mossie had 8 guns, 4 were canon

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>What was the X of WW2?

Terrible question, aircraft are designed with doctrine and industrial factors in mind, not some abstract idea of being the "best".

The P-51 wasn't significantly faster or more maneuverable than contemporary variants of the Spitfire and Bf109--but, it managed to perform about the same as either one *after* flying to Berlin *and* while still carrying enough reserve fuel to get all the way back to England.

if you had to choose one fighter it would have to be the Corsair or the P38
They had the combination of range, payload and performance that was difficult to touch.
basically they were the F15 Strike eagles of their day.
people forget that the Lightning had medium bomber tier range and payload.
There is a reason the Corsair was the only American fighter in production from beginning until after the end of the war.

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The P-51 was probably the best fighter of the war, but not because of reasons the old history channel would have told you. It was easy to fly, easy to learn, had great ergonomics and instrument layout, was mostly automated, and could fly at any altitude and with the best range, and was not inferior in performance in any particular area to any enemy fighter.

Hard to say, all top scoring aces like Pokrishkyn and Kozhedub used Lavochkins while yaks were all around better for ground support and such

F4U Corsair, because it make my peepee hard

this is fuckin murica user. We chose both

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Pokhryshkin scored the majority of his victories with a P-39, not a Lavochkin

Most aces scored their victories in an inferior craft before moving up to a better one by the end of the war, especially Germans who fought the entire war, and Russian pilots who started out in outdated and obsolete planes.

Classic yank self fellatio: making it so it's the enemy that praises you,
And then Hans Shkrumlaut, hyper-big SS nazi bomber killer pilot was quoted saying:"The P-51 was something else. It could do everything we could do and do it much better in a better way!. First off, it was hard to recognize when it activated its cloaking system. Unless you saw it from the side, it looked like a Me 109 but of course it looked much cooler. This caused us trouble from the outset. We would see them and shit our pants because americans are much cooler than us germans, the we would think they were ours and then the damned things would shoot us full of holes with laser guided rocket launchers made in american by smith and wesson. We didn't like them at all but we wish we had them; as a matter of fact we wish we were americans because americans are the best of the best in everything."

Hans Skrumlaut, hyper-nig nazi bomber killer pilot serjeant major III golde star purple heart. recipient of the medull of honor for tieing his shoes.

also managed to shoot down a Mig 15 in Korea....

Just Imagine a Twin P47... with 5klbs of bombs 8 Center line 50s and a Center mounted gun pod with 8 more....

I don't give a fuck about best but air cobra is my favorite girl.
>Tricycle
>mid engine
>good weight balance so highly mobile
It was too ahead of its time.

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>>mid engine
>>good weight balance so highly mobile
>It was too ahead of its time.

Is this bait? Or have you have literally never read about it's CoG problems

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go back to pol weraboo
american planes were the best of the war

Fuck, Honduras used them until 1979. That is a long service life.

Re.2005 Sagittario on account of being the prettiest

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Based Corsair basically won the air battle over Guadacanal single handedly

Eurocucks and Tea Niggers and Rice Bois are still SEETHING about its absolute unquestioned superiority to this day

Except they're not wrong, the P-39 had hilariously bad stability issues if the nose cannon had no ammo. It tended to go into an unrecoverable flat spin without weight up there.

The Corsair wasn't used over Guadalcanal until just after the end of the campaign there (campaign ended 9 February 1943, first dozen Corsairs arrived on the 12th, with their first combat sorties happening 2 days later), the majority of air combat was done by F4F Wildcats and P-38s

COPE

Facts have no place here. Be gone, this realm is cursed.

>*Goes into flat spin*

The Fw-190 is my vote.

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The P-51B in Big Week was almost 40mph faster than contemporary German types and didn't lose this outright speed advantage until the introduction of the Bf 109K and Fw 190D in September and October 1944 respectively. They weren't significantly faster either, and production difficulties in late war Germany meant that these aircraft were often limited to much slower speeds.

Depends on the timeline. When WW2 started I would say the 109, then P-51. The Russian Yak 3/9 apparently also was a better spitfire.

Biggest problem was fuel. High octane fuel wasn't a thing for Germany

This is partially true. Some of Germany's highest performing fighters did it on 87 octane B4. Addition of boosting additives such as MW50 helped significantly but I personally feel that a lot of problems were aerodynamic in nature.

Example: Bf 109G-10 and K-4. These two aircraft were very similar, having almost identical construction and engines. The only major difference between the K and the G-10 was addition of a fixed tailwheel on the G-10. This tail wheel took a 20mph of performance off the top speed of the aircraft by comparison to the K

F4U and Fw 190 were all around good planes. I leave twin engine fighters and the jug out because they were so much more expensive to build and maintain than most single engine fighters.
Bf 109 of course deserves a honorable mention for ruling the early war and staying competitive for very long.
Is that even the highest of the war and isn't that based on claimed kills? Has anyone even counted k/d for most other fighters?
Apart from folding wings and decent range, did F6F offer anything special compared to other 1943-1945 fighters? It seems to shine only thanks to poor opposition like

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its called butcher bird,
for a reason.

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Yeah, if you think about it the Bf 109 was quite something else design wise. As a pre-war fighter that managed to hold its own right up to the end of the war against newer fighters with high octane fuel, it must had quite a solid design. My vote is on the Spitfire though, on paper it was a beast, especially the later variants with high engine power.

Yak-3 because it's just so damn small and cute, also an interesting use for an outdated engine. It would bait German pilots (many of whom were inexperienced recruits by 1944) to low altitude and then it could out turn the much heavier FWs and late MEs.

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>posts an I-15
also being slower than the enemy bombers is not a desirable trait in a figher

>I"m not a wehraboo or anything, im just saying that they should get credit for the sheer amount of planes they shot down.
perhaps, but the more you look at the numbers the less impressive they look

BW-364 scored 42½ confirmed kills.
No other fighter ever scored as high as her.

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Swordfish, had the best kd in terms of resources spent of any torpedo plane.

Swordfish is not a fighter aircraft.

P-38 Lightning

It has excellent speed, maneuverability, climb, long range, and high altitude performance, its well-armed, and it has two engines so over-water ops, long range ops, and operations over austere locations can still be done relatively safely. The twin engine redundancy made it a favorite with pilots.

An all-around excellent plane so long as it has a heater installed.

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>*Goes into dive and can't pull-up*

Having two engines and so large size has downsides too.
It's simply much larger target to shoot at and it was 2-3 times more expensive than some single engine fighters.
P-38 isn't even well armed if you to compare it to other twin engine fighters.

Retarded question. This one is my personal favourite, mosquito.

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I would rather fly a yak-3. I would rather fight alongside a p-51 or fw-190. The yak is so light and aerodynamic, I bet it would be the comfiest to fly.

>t. Butt hurt Bismarck

But it lost even against La5 it was absurdly shitty stop playing war thunder

Because lavochkins were delivered at late stages of war when pokryshkin mainly taught new pilots instead of flying himself?

Is that cosford?

Never happened.

What ever you say.

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Folmar's F4U-4B wasn't a WWII model, it was updated post-war with a different motor.
Neither was the other piston fighter that downed a MiG-15, the Sea Fury FB.11.

fingols are known for exaggerating enemy casualties and understating theirs it's a well known fact

user, the buried engine concept disappeared fron piston fighters for a lot of very good reasons. If even McDonnell couldn't make it work with the XP-67, Bell had no chance.

I already said those were confirmed kills, not claims.
In BW-364's case those were checked from Russian archives.

The 109 was directly comparable in nearly every category.

Pretty sure there is a consensus on the Fw-109 as the best all-around fighter.

Outmatched the Allies all the way to 1945.

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Aye, took it during the air show there.

Sure pekka just like the name white deth and plans to annex whole finland taken from top secret soviet archives

Just tell me who started Winter War Sergei.
>white deth
Was there any cases when "the enemy gave it/him this edgy nickname" was actually true and not just propaganda?
Like Forktailed devil and Whistling death etc.

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Winter war was started by Finland by refusing to Lease Soviet Union territories that rightfully belonged to USSR. Soviet command was nice enough to accept finnish capitulation after breaching mannerheim line because they achieved their objectives. I bet they don't teach that in retard schools/

G55 obviously

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Cope, loser.

this is bait right?

even assuming a innocent mistake and that you meant the FW190 you would be wrong, but the Bf109 wasnt near the best fighter of the war, in the early years it traded a narrow margin of superiority with the spitfire before the spit slowly began to gain more of a edge as upgrades to both progressed, and the spitfire itself while a excellent fighter wasnt the undisputed holder of the best RAF fighter with the tempest challenging in the later years.

and americans will argue for the P47 or P51 or corsair.

Boring thread topic, why can't we have another underrated aircraft thread? For me, it's the Lightning. And the FW190. Both were at their best in comfy environments too.
>P-38 pilot gets to patrol beautiful Pacific and dab on dumb helpless Japs with superior speed
>German ace gets to easily rack up hundreds of kills against conscript pilots
>both are still respected by everyone post war

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bullshit
most other twin engine fighters had their armament in the wings
the Lightning had everything (4 50s and a single 20mm cannon) on the centerline making targets MUCH easier to hit.
It was expensive and relatively hard to fly but its firepower punch was literally never in question throughout the war

fucking idiot

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>stop playing war thunder
>says the user who plays warthunder

The FW-190 was much better than the 109, the A8s and F8s were heavier and weren't as light and maneuverable as the previous models, but the FW-190 was overall much more technically advanced than the 109. The D9 is probably the best German prop fighter that was made in significant numbers, aircraft like the TA-152 being produced much less so. Like the P-51, it is the engineering feats and advanced automation that make the aircraft superior, the kind of thing that the lamen usually cant appreciate

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Question: How many WW2 airframes were still deemed combat-worthy in the 1960's and early 70's...?

Hail to the king. There can be only one.

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The 190 also wasn't an ergonomic nightmare like the bf-109.

>I Play Warthunder Arcade Battles

>German fighter pilots literally dominate the most kills list.

US/UK pulled their best people out of combat and used them to train new pilots to be the best they can be, increasing the power of all of their forces.
Germany kept them flying combat missions because they needed everyone they could get.

A-1 Skyraider and that's basically it

The Corsair then

The early Experten like Moelders, Galland and Marseille all racked up near or over 100 victories against the western allies early in the war. The BF109 series is far and away the most successful fighter of WW2 in terms of victories, production and overall performance.

There were certainly much better aircraft on all sides but the BF109 still stayed relevant and competitive in one way or the other with them all the way to the end of the war.